Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

The grab is perfect. He pulls up next to her, asking her directions, even offering her a free ice cream for her assistance. When she takes the cone he grabs her arm and sticks her with the needle. No witnesses. No struggle. No screaming. A textbook abduction.

  Then he quickly ties her up in his basement and waits for her to wake up.

  But she wakes up too fast. He’s making himself a sandwich and suddenly she’s running up the stairs, naked and frantic.

  He grabs her, trying to pin her down, but she scratches him across the eyes. He loses his temper and backhands her, sending her tumbling down the stairs.

  And she breaks her lousy neck.

  Such a waste! All the time and planning, ruined! She dies not even knowing who he is, or why she’s being punished.

  Charles kicks her again, then goes to take care of his face. His eye burns, an ugly red mark bisecting the cornea. It requires treatment, but a doctor is out of the question. The scratch marks on his face look like scratch marks. There would be questions, and he would be remembered.

  He makes do with iodine and gauze pads. Later he’ll get some kind of eye ointment at the store. He has some things to do first.

  With his anger soaring and his face hurting like hell, Charles has no desire to violate the body. Sex is the furthest thing from his mind. But he has a reputation to uphold, and for the next part of his plan it’s necessary.

  At first he can’t get aroused. But Jack helps him with that. Thinking of Jack’s face when she discovers this body. Thinking how Jack will scream when he has her in the basement, doing this to her.

  Thinking of being inside Jack.

  He finishes, grunting in satisfaction. Then he begins.

  They’re probably on to his disposal method and undoubtedly watching all convenience stores. But he has something different in mind. Something audacious.

  First he removes the hand that scratched him. He knows there’s DNA evidence under her fingernails, but he’s already left DNA samples with his semen and he doesn’t care. He does care, however, about alerting the authorities to the fact that she scratched him. He’ll have this bandage on his face for a while, and doesn’t need to have that bit of information added to his description.

  After the hand, he begins to dissect the rest of the body. He works on a plastic tarp, with a cleaver and some wire cutters.

  When he finishes, he loads everything of size into a fifty-gallon thermos cooler. There’s plenty of glop left over, which he disposes of outside.

  In the vacant lot behind his house there is a manhole. He’s been dropping things down there for years, feeding the rats. He uses a butcher’s hook with a T-shaped handle to pry up the cover, and dumps all the little parts still on the tarp into the sewer.

  He listens to the soft plops in the darkness, followed by squeals of delight from the rodent populace.

  “Snack time.” He giggles.

  He takes a quick but thorough shower, using a toothbrush to get the blood out of his fingernails, carefully avoiding his bandage. Then he spends twenty minutes getting the cooler up the stairs and into his truck. Another ten minutes are used up removing all of the pictures and descriptions of ice cream along the side panels and replacing them with signs that say “Mel’s Plumbing,” complete with a bogus phone number.

  He also has a three-foot-long metal plunger, which he picked up at an auto graveyard, that attaches to the roof. An ice cream truck is conspicuous after dark, but a plumber can come and go at all hours.

  Coming up on two in the morning, he finishes polishing his press statement. He has a lot to say, but if it’s too long, it wouldn’t all be used on the news. He wants it short, succinct, and on the front page. After printing the final copy, he puts it in an envelope along with the parts he’s saved from Theresa Metcalf.

  It’s a cold night, and with his heavy jacket and hat he feels anonymous. First he dumps the cooler under some garbage bags in an alley he’s had picked out for some time.

  Then he makes a stop at an all-night coffee shop and buys himself a cup. After nursing it long enough to become invisible to the other customers, he hits the bathroom and uses some duct tape to secure his envelope behind the toilet bowl, putting his gloves on to avoid leaving fingerprints.

  Gloves still on, he leaves the diner and walks to the nearest pay phone, calling the tip line for the Chicago Tribune.

  “This is the Gingerbread Man,” he tells the rookie who picks up the phone, “and I’m going to make you famous.”

  He hangs around for the next forty minutes, until some guy strides into the diner in an apparent rush, walking out two minutes later with the envelope.

  The cops will be coming soon. Maybe even Jack. He stays and watches the fireworks, from the window of a corner bar across the street.

  There’s plenty of excitement; four patrol cars, five news vans, dozens of oglers.

  No Jack.

  He fidgets, sipping his beer until closing time, wondering why Jack hasn’t shown up. Her fat partner hasn’t shown either. Maybe a few body parts and a letter don’t warrant waking them from their beauty rest. At four in the morning, the bar kicks everyone out, and he decides to check for himself.

  He parks three blocks away from Jack’s apartment, not sure how close the surveillance on her is. He walks quickly, hands in his pockets, head down, looking as if he has a destination.

  On Jack’s street he spots the team; they’re parked almost a block away, and the windows are tinted to prevent looking in. But their cover is blown. Because it’s cold, they have the heat on, and the engine is running. Charles sees the exhaust from a hundred yards away, and turns in his tracks and heads back the way he came.

  If Jack’s tail is still there, then Jack is still there. So the easiest way to follow Jack is to follow her tail.

  They’ll be looking for someone stalking Jack.

  But they won’t be looking for someone stalking them.

  The Gingerbread Man gets back into his plumbing truck and finds a parking space a block away from the surveillance team.

  Then he turns off the engine, shoves his hands in his pockets, and waits.

  Chapter 29

  AS USUAL, HERB BEAT ME TO WORK. “I didn’t know you owned a pair of jeans,” he said.

  “I’m undercover.”

  “I don’t think they make Bon Jour anymore.”

  “Are you saying I’m out of style?”

  “Is that an Izod shirt? I haven’t seen one in fifteen years.”

  Like Herb could talk. The tie he wore today had a pineapple hand-painted on it.

  “You’re fired,” I told him.

  Herb ignored me, turning his attention to a box of grocery Danish. The phone rang.

  “Daniels.”

  “My office. Benedict too.”

  Bains hung up. His small talk needed work.

  “We are to proceed directly to the office of our captain,” I informed Benedict.

  He nodded, stuffing the rest of the breakfast roll into his mouth, basset hound jowls inflating like balloons. Canine to chipmunk in 2.2 seconds.

  We walked down the hall, Herb madly chewing and me trying to keep pace, having judiciously left my cane in my office. No point in looking frail before the almighty Captain Bains. Herb did a big cartoon swallow and we went in.

  Bains took off his reading glasses and nodded at us.

  “Early this morning our man left a package for the Chicago Tribune. It contained some body parts, in a plastic bag, that have since been confirmed as Theresa Metcalf’s. There was also a letter.”

  Bains glanced at the paper on the table, encased in a big plastic bag. Herb picked it up and we read.

  Chicago,

  This is the Gingerbread Man. The lies must stop. My plan was to leave this city after the fourth, but now I may stay to take revenge for the things said about me. I let that Judas live, and she betrayed me. Now you will all pay the price.

  Let me make it clear. I am no joke. I will kill your daughters, Chicago. Your sisters shall suffer
. I will continue to kill until I am shown respect.

  Fire Daniels. Let the truth come out.

  “Has this been run yet?” I asked.

  “It will be, afternoon edition. We were able to hold it back until we confirmed the parts belonged to the second girl.”

  “Did we get anything?” Benedict asked.

  “No prints. He left it in a bathroom at a coffee shop. A team is still taking the place apart, dusting for prints, talking to customers and staff. It was a busy place, even that early in the morning. No one remembers anything. We have a tape of the phone call to the Trib; they automatically record their tip line. Voice print is being done, but it won’t help unless we catch him.”

  “Why weren’t we called last night?”

  I realized, as it came out of my mouth, that I already knew the answer.

  “The mayor has given jurisdiction on this case over to the Feds. Officially, you are on a leave of absence pending charges of official misconduct. The paper will run a statement from the police superintendent alongside the letter.”

  “That’s bullshit, Captain!” Herb had a mad-on, venting for both of us. “The Feebies couldn’t catch a cold in a snowstorm.”

  “Jack is officially on a leave of absence. You, Herb, will still keep our end of things up around here. And whatever Jack decides to do, on her own time as a private citizen, is her business.”

  I smiled. I never liked the spotlight much anyway.

  “Now bring me up to speed,” Bains said.

  Herb and I took turns, relating what we had so far, and what we were going after.

  “So the women are connected,” Bains said when we finished.

  “We think so. Maybe not to each other, but definitely to our perp. He’s not grabbing women of a certain type, he’s grabbing women he knows and wants to punish. If we can find the link, perhaps we find him.”

  “In his note, he refers to the fourth. The Feds think it’s the fourth of next month.”

  “Could be,” I said. “Or it could be the fourth victim.”

  The phone rang. The chief picked it up, listened, and held out the phone for me.

  “Daniels.”

  “This is Briggs, front desk. Don’t want to bust your chops in front of the boss, but we’ve got a guy on hold says something happened to your mom.”

  Panic exploded within me. “Put him through.”

  “Jack? Guess who.”

  I gave a quick nod to Bains and mouthed “It’s him.” He picked up his cell phone and gave word to trace.

  “What’s happened to my mother?”

  “Just blowing smoke, Jack, so they’d put me through to you. But I did leave you something, in the alley behind your building. A picnic lunch. Enjoy it. See you soon.”

  The line went dead.

  “He’s off,” I said.

  “Pay phone on Michigan,” Bains said. The days of long traces were in the past. The modern phone trace was practically instantaneous.

  I relayed the conversation word for word, Benedict writing it all down. A minute later the chief’s cell phone rang.

  “They missed him,” he told us. “Blended into the rush hour crowd.”

  “Let’s go check the alley,” Benedict said.

  Bains came with us. We didn’t bother to stop for coats.

  The district building was on a street corner, and on the third side was the parking lot. The alley wasn’t an official alley; just an enclave where the Dumpsters were kept. We approached it cautiously, eyes scanning everything. Since we both outranked Herb, he did the honors of rooting through the garbage.

  “Looks like a cooler,” he said, moving some bags. “Big one.”

  Bains gave the go-ahead to open it. Herb lifted the corner, holding the edge with a handkerchief.

  “Christ.”

  It was bad. Real bad. This had surpassed murder and become butchery.

  “Let’s rope it off, get a team in here.” Bains shook his head. The third body being found right behind his police station wouldn’t help his career.

  I left the scene, placing a phone call to Mom, just to make sure she was safe. Then I sat on the steps in front of the district building, still without a jacket, letting the cold be my penance.

  I’d let another person die.

  The team came, and the reporters, and a crowd of gawkers.

  I thought about my job, and my mom, and my insomnia, and my date that afternoon, and Don.

  I thought about Benedict, and Phineas Troutt, and Harry McGlade, and my past, and my ex-husband, and the dog I had when I was a kid that we had to put to sleep because he broke his leg chasing a rabbit.

  I thought about the stars in the sky. I hadn’t seen the stars in years. The smog in Chicago was thick enough to blot them out. For all I knew, they weren’t there anymore.

  I wondered what the point was. No one was happy. Every day brings some new annoyance, some new problem, some new pain. And if you managed to avoid cancer, and AIDS, and drugs, and car accidents, and malevolent acts of God, there was still the chance that some wacko would grab you, or your kid, and torture them to death for no reason.

  I tried to remember the last time I laughed so hard it hurt. I tried to recall a day where I went to bed happy.

  I couldn’t.

  Special Agents Dailey and Coursey, in matching black trench coats, materialized from the crowd and walked briskly up to me. They moved in step, left foot, right foot, as if they were doing a Wrigley’s Doublemint commercial. I didn’t hide my disappointment when they stopped in front of my stoop.

  “We hope there’s no hard feelings,” Dailey said.

  I gave him a blank look.

  “That you’re off the case. We know what it’s like, and we’ll do our best to keep you in the loop.”

  How about that? An olive branch.

  “In return, we’d like to use some of your men.”

  The left hand giveth, and the right hand taketh away.

  “What for?”

  “We believe we’ve found the horse. We’d like to put it under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  Both waited for my reply. I took a moment, then gave it to them.

  “You’re out of your minds.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve got another girl murdered here, and you want me to pull my people off the case so they can stake out a horse? You’re out of your goddamn minds.”

  “Lieutenant, I’m sure you’re aware—”

  “I’m aware that you’re wasting my time. I don’t give a rat’s ass what Vicky says, or what your boss says, or what the cross-dressing ghost of J. Edgar Hoover says. Stay out of my way, or I’ll arrest you and toss you in general population wearing gang colors.”

  They looked at each other, then back at me.

  “Perhaps it’s best that you’ve been removed from the case,” the one on the left said.

  I stood, twenty years of pent-up anger swelling in my chest.

  “Get the fuck away from me.”

  It must have been a startling transformation, because they both flinched. Then they got away from me. I sat back down, content to follow the self-pity route a bit longer. Eventually Benedict found me, handing over my coat.

  “What did Abbott and Costello have to say?”

  “They want to borrow some uniforms to stake out a horse.”

  “Which house?”

  “Not house. Horse. Like with four legs and John Wayne on top.”

  “They think a horse did it?”

  “Their profile. Remember their French Canadian Connection?”

  He seemed to think about this.

  “Did you tell them to fuck off?”

  I nodded, putting on my coat. Then we walked back into the fray.

  Herb and I, the crowd, the media, and the world, watched as the contents were removed from the cooler.

  It was a scene from a horror film, but the sadness in me outweighed the shock.

  Then I stood along the sidelines while Herb took control of the
crime scene.

  Chapter 30

  BENEDICT WAS THE ONE WHO TALKED me into keeping my date.

  “All we can do now is wait for the reports to come in. Go have lunch.”

  “There are a million things to do.”

  “And a million people to do them. This is your job, Jack, not your life. Go eat. Everything will be here when you get back.”

  “My clothes are still at the cleaners.”

  “You look fine. Go. That’s an order. Bains made me the senior on this investigation, remember?”

  Traffic was good. I made it to the restaurant ten minutes early, and parked in front of a hydrant. The place did a moderate lunch, and the lobby was bustling when I entered. Jimmy Wong’s was a Chicago landmark of sorts, famous in its day. The decor was pure 1950s, a throwback to the Rat Pack era. It even had the requisite wall of fame. I eyed a signed picture of Klinger from M*A*S*H and checked my hair in the glass. After some brief finger fluffing, I went to the host desk.

  A Chinese man wearing a red bow tie informed me that my date had not yet arrived, and directed me to the bar, where I could wait. I ordered a Diet Coke, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the minutes passed. The last thing I needed was time to sit and dwell.

  I watched him come in, seeing his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. He wore a tailored suit, dark blue pinstripe, with a light blue shirt. His smile was pleasant and seemed genuine when his gaze fell on me. He had a good walk, confident, with a slight bounce, toes pointed straight ahead and not out to the sides like a duck. I never found duck walkers attractive.

  I stood to meet him, hoping my smile didn’t look dopey.

  “How do you do, Jack.” He offered his hand, his grip firm but gentle.

  “Very nice to meet you, Latham. Great suit.”

  “Do you think so? Thanks.”

  We let the host seat us at a dimly lit corner booth. Almost immediately a busboy set down a pot of tea. Neither of us touched the pot, or our menus. I tried to look relaxed, but wasn’t sure if I was succeeding.

  “So, where do you work?” I asked. It seemed like a good way to get the conversational ball rolling.